In the vast majority of vehicles on the road today a driver expects to have one foot pedal devoted to causing the vehicle to be urged to increase in speed or accelerate (the accelerator pedal) and an entirely separate pedal devoted to causing braking or a positive decrease in speed when pressed (the brake pedal).
Traditionally drivers are taught to use the same foot to operate both pedals. Hence, when a driver of such a vehicle wishes to brake the vehicle it is necessary for the driver to physically lift his or her foot from the accelerator pedal, move it over to the location of the brake pedal and then move his or her foot down on the brake pedal. The physical movement of the foot from one pedal to another firstly takes time and secondly is an imprecise operation. For example, a driver, particularly an inexperienced driver or an elderly driver, can initially misplace his or her foot relative to the brake pedal. It is not unknown for a driver, in the course of transferring a foot from the accelerator pedal to the brake pedal, to move his or her foot beneath the brake pedal instead of over the top of it thereby, as a minimum, leading to an increase in the time taken to place the foot correctly on the brake pedal and initiate braking of the vehicle and, in the worse case, contributing to an accident where braking is simply not initiated in time as a result of the foot placement error causing initiation of braking action of the vehicle to take far too long.
It is an object of the present invention to overcome or ameliorate one or more of the abovementioned disadvantages or to at least provide a useful alternative.